On the heels of a quiet, cold winter, the Prairie house became a whirl of activity. It’s good to enjoy those quiet winter days; they don’t last long. Our visiting turkey hunters set out early and came in late, thus we rarely saw our guests. I caught up with my brother, Skip Shelton, coming in at the late hour of 9 p.m. His eyes looked bleary. “You can’t run on a few hours of sleep,” I said.
“It’s turkey season; you might only get five good days so you have to make the most of them. This blasted rain is making a mess.” He bid me adieu and stumbled to his room, only to be gone again by 4 a.m.
Skip and his hunter friend, Troy, joined Sam and me at a Mississippi State vs. Ole Miss ballgame. Aubrey Nichols and his wife, Joy, sat in front of us. I leaned over and asked Skip if he had seen the documentary “One Night in March.”
He said that he had not. I briefly outlined the story of the 1963 MSU basketball team and whispered, “That’s Aubrey Nichols. He’s one of the stars.”
Skip responded that he had known Aubrey for years. He leaned forward and the two renewed their friendship with a handshake. Skip said, “I always said that you married one of the prettiest girls there was … and I married the prettiest.”
The two chuckled. I suspected they might be right. The following morning, Skip and Troy were gone again by 4 a.m.
The neighborhood Prairie women convened for the annual spring tea. Shirley, my walking buddy, handcrafted invitations while for three days I cleaned the house, porches, washed windows and re-filled the flowerbeds and flower pots with bedding plants.
It was a lovely tea. At some point we had nixed the tea since no one drank tea, so Shirley squeezed out lemonade. The ladies collected near the food table enjoying delectables provided by Karen Overstreet, Carolyn Pope and Becky Taylor. I contributed some store-bought sugar-free cookies.
Half the ladies enjoyed themselves on the porch right next to the recycle bins while a few trekked down to see the rabbit hutches. I thought perhaps all that house and window cleaning was less than necessary.
The week continued with a visit from the Northhaven Garden Club. When Mary Faglie called, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why a garden club would want to see bedding plants in flower pots but they did. The temperatures plummeted, and so I read them a story about daffodils that I didn’t write, showed a few books with stories that I did write, and introduced author Laurie Parker, whom I called for back-up, and who wrote and illustrated a garden book. Our time shared was delightful.
The week ended with a thoughtful Easter celebration and me, kicked back, feet up, enjoying the view through very clean windows, sipping lemonade, reflecting, and munching a store-bought cookie … or two.
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